This invention is directed to a lock mechanism having a bolt which can be utilized from either the right or the left hand side of the lock mechanism.
A variety of locks and lock mechanisms is known. These range from very simple padlocks to very complex high security locks. For doors which are hinged along one edge with their lock mechanism located on an edge parallel to the edge used for hinging, many high security lock mechanisms are available. On other doors such as those typified by certain type of garage doors which are hinged along tow parallel edges on either side of the door, high security locks are not available. Typically, on these doors a padlock is used in conjunction with a latch mechanism which slides back and forth sideways and engages a round opening formed in the door frame.
The locking mechanisms typically used on the above described garage doors are notoriously easy to foil. If a padlock is utilized, it can simply be removed by a pair of bolt cutters. Even if a high security padlock is utilized, the hardware latch mechanism on the garage door on which the lock is used is typically not of a sufficient diameter and/or material to resist bending, and the door can be broken into by forcefully opening the door. Once the bottom of the door is opened a small amount, because the door is hinged about a center line extending horizontally through the door, force applied to the bottom edge of the door is compounted by the lever arm between the bottom edge of the door and the center line of the door. Because the force is compounded by the lever arm, it makes it even easier to bend the latch hardware.
Aside from the above, even if the above described garage door is locked with a very secure mechanism along one side, one can still gain entrance to the garage by pulling on the opposite bottom corner of the door. This skews the door about it's hinges and about the mechanism on the opposite side. Normally, the door can be skewed enough that an unauthorized person can easily gain access to the structure wherein the door is located. To prevent this, it is necessary to place a locking mechanism on both sides of the door. This can be accomplished by positioning one of the above described padlock mechanisms on either side of the door. Because these types of doors have to be locked on both sides, heretofore any attempt to provide for a high security lock mechanism for these types of doors would have had to include both a right hand model and a left hand model. Inherently this would increase the cost of any mechanisms because of the tooling necessary to actually form two independent locks, one a right hand lock and one a left hand lock. In addition, suppliers of such lock mechanisms would have to carry two independent inventories of locks, an inventory of a right hand model and an inventory of a left hand model.
In order to avoid the problem of having to engineer and produce both a right hand model and a left hand model lock mechanism, and to carry a dual inventory, a single locking mechanism might be utilized with it being placed upright on one side, as for instance the right hand side and inverted on the other side, the left hand side. This, however, is not without its problem in that in the inverted configuration, since it would be pointed upwardly, inevitably the actual locking mechanism of such a lock structure would be exposed to environmental conditions such as rain and snow, and dust and the like. By exposing a lock mechanism to the elements in such an inverted position, inevitably a lock mechanism quickly deteriorates because of these elements.